Dean Richards has travelled a long way on the rocky road to redemption, but
the Newcastle Falcons boss knows that the bumpy ride is not over yet.

Richards has served his time – three years – for being ‘the directorial mind’ behind the ‘Bloodgate’ scandal of 2009, but spent convictions will mean nothing to opposition fans in the rugby roughhouses of the Aviva Premiership in the weeks ahead.

Richards knows the taunts and sick jokes are coming. So it might be just as well that he has lugubrious as his default setting. The sport as a whole is fascinated by the return of its prodigal son, but Richards has been unwaveringly nonchalant about it all. It is not about him, he says, it is about the club, the players and rugby in the north east of England.

The Falcons, funded from the apparently bottomless pockets of Sir John Hall, their first owner, won the Premiership in 1998 with a team of stellar names, but the budget and the stars drifted away and years of grim struggle set in. Their relegation, in 2012, was probably overdue.

Yet one triumphant season in the Championship has done wonders for the atmosphere around Kingston Park. In fact, Richards seems anxious to quell expectations ahead of this evening’s Premiership opener against Bath at the tidy Newcastle ground. "I’m excited, and the players are," he said. "But we won’t get overexcited. We’ll do the job as best we can."

Richards’ obsessions are with consolidation and consistency. And, although he might not say it, cost-efficiency as well. Newcastle could scoop up world-class players in the days when they had a world-class chequebook, but Richards has had to spend wisely.

"The step up from the Championship is massive," he explained. "In the Championship you might get two or three games where you are really tested to the limit for the full 80 minutes, but in the Premiership you have to lay at the same intensity week in and week out."

With Scots Phil Godman, Fraser McKenzie and Mike Blair added to a squad that already included Ally Hogg, the joke around Newcastle is that Richards has been trying to recreate the Edinburgh team of 2008.

However, the arrival of two Premiership winners in the shape of Andy Saull and Adam Powell, both from Saracens, shows that the net has been cast wider, if still with solid experience in mind.

Richards said: "Looking at the side that we have now, we have a far more balanced team than we’ve had for a little while, and that balance of youth and experience will serve us well."